A new brand of comedy is set to hit Absolute Comedy later this month, requiring stand-up comics to not only have a quick wit, but also a thick skin.
Ottawa-based comic Todd Van Allen is bringing his popular Write Em Up to the nation’s capital on Thursday, Feb. 29, after successfully hosting the show in Toronto for eight years.
“I can’t wait,” he said in an interview with OBJ. “Of all my shows, this is my favourite, bar none.”
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Audiences can expect a whole new level of fun added to their comedy night, he promised. A team of writers recruited by Van Allen will be crafting jokes about each comic’s performance. “It’s kind of a double-dose show,” he explained. “If you just go to a regular comedy show, that’s entertaining enough. You should be happy with that. But, we add on this extra layer.”
Anything the comic says, does or even wears is fair game for good-natured ridicule, including flubbed lines and missed punchlines. After the performer exits the stage, Van Allen collects the writers’ roast jokes and reads them verbatim to the audience.
Van Allen recalled one time when a comic, who happened to be a personal friend of his, bombed during his set.
“When he got off stage, I went and grabbed the roast jokes and started reading them,” said Van Allen. The audience erupted with laughter over the ribbing that the comic received from the writers, he said. It was like “picking through the bones, performing an autopsy” of what just happened on stage.
Audiences appreciate being part of an inside joke, according to Van Allen, who finds local or regional humour to be particularly effective when performing in smaller towns.
Originally from Gananoque, Van Allen moved to Toronto to find fame and fortune. “I found neither,” he joked with a deadpan delivery.
Ottawa has been his home for nearly four years, though it seems like less time; he arrived only a couple of months into the pandemic. One of the reasons he and his wife relocated here was to be closer to their respective parents.
Last year, Van Allen helped to organize the Ottawa Cancer Foundation (formerly Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation)’s inaugural Laugh for the Cure charity comedy night. However, it was when fellow comics started referring to him by his nickname, TVA, that he truly started to feel accepted on the local comedy scene.
Write Em Up originated from a similar concept created by American stand-up veteran Jimmy Pardo. He and Van Allen are friends, so it was no trouble for Van Allen to get Pardo’s blessing to start a comedy roast show in Canada’s largest city.
More recently, Van Allen had been producing Write Em Up at Toronto’s Comedy Bar by commuting from Ottawa. However, it made more sense to create a new presence for the show here, said Van Allen, who’s hoping to make it a regular feature.
He’s predicting Write Em Up will catch on. Earlier this winter, the comic was promoting the show while on stage at Absolute Comedy. “Later, people were coming up to me and going, ‘Sorry, when is that roast thing again?’ Already, there’s an interest, and I’m happy to see that.”
As part of Ottawa’s inaugural edition of Write Em Up, Van Allen will welcome to the stage comics Brad Doiron, Simone Holder, Owen McGowan, Emmett Morrison and Fabio Ricci.
These comics will face writers Tavis Maplesden, Brendan McKeigan and Melanie Paige.
The show is taking place at the Absolute Comedy club on Preston Street in Little Italy, starting at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 each and are available online or by calling the club at (613) 233-8000.
